12/18/2023 0 Comments Muslim folktale examplesFor example, manuscript IES 00286 at the Institute of Ethiopian Studies (Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia) includes a text on magical prayers and amulets used to control Jinn and is characterised by numerous anthropomorphic and zoomorphic illustrations of fantastical beasts that are similar to the ones found in USJ 00277. Texts such as this one are not uncommon in the Islamic manuscript tradition. It is divided in abwāb (chapters), each related to a specific spell or charm, describing its recipe and its use. 58r-74v), is a 19th-century text on magic spells and charms, rich in drawings of monsters and demons, magic squares, and charms written with secret alphabets. 1r-23r) and a Christian text on protective amulets (fol. In between Abū Jāmūs’s Manual on rhapsodomancy (fol. Manuscript USJ 00277, in the collection of the Bibliothèque Orientale at the Université Saint-Joseph (Beirut, Lebanon), is a multi-text volume containing three texts about magic and alchemy, each extracted from a different manuscript and put together in this quirky volume that even has a cut-out from a match box to decorate the back cover. On the other hand, these magical texts can contain original material on folk stories that are less known and that have been left behind in other literary contexts. Looking at magic texts can, on the one hand, enrich our knowledge of known folk stories and their dissemination in the context of magical text production. ![]() Many of these texts relied on the rich literary heritage of folktales and stories that circulated regionally. Such texts were linked to a wide range of practices that required the help of magic, including healing, interpreting dreams, predicting the weather and future events, and-for all activities of daily life-casting protective spells against the evil supernatural powers. ![]() ![]() Despite having been contested in Islamic history by powerful groups rejecting them as illegitimate practices, magic and divination are recurring subjects in the Islamic written heritage.
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